Book Reviews Archive - Page 74 of 79

Claude & Camille by Stephanie Cowell: Book Review

This is the story of Claude Monet; his great love, Camille Doncieux; and their life as they struggle together in the years before his fame. I started reading this not knowing anything about Monet except that I used to have a print of one of his works hanging in my bedroom. I also don't know much about art except that I know what I like. I have enjoyed reading fiction about art and artists in the past, so I thought I'd give this a try. It was okay. It is always amazing to me that artists who are generally accepted to be--I don't know, geniuses?--had to struggle so hard to be recognized back when they first started out, and sometimes even throughout their entire lives. I guess that just goes to show that people are slow to accept change. The main reason that this got three stars is that it's written in a style that's not really for me. It felt like the author tried to stick very closely to the facts, which I do respect, but that made it feel more like I was reading a biography rather than fiction. I read very, very little non-fiction, so that wasn't a style that worked for me. I'm willing to sacrifice a little truth for a good story! Just ask my husband! ;-) The angle of approaching Monet's life through his relationship with Camille also didn't quite work for me. It was a stormy relationship, and I'm not one for that kind of drama in real life or the printed page. I want to smack people around, and say, "If you're that unhappy, do something about it!" I did enjoy reading about Monet's relationships with the other early Impressionists. I had no idea that all these guys hung out together. Reading…

Storm Front by Jim Butcher: Book Review

4 Stars. Were there a few problems with this book? Yes. But it was fun, funny, suspenseful and original. I read it in one shift at work. I was hooked when Harry quips, "But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face." What a great line! Harry is a [...]

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin: Book Review

This book, the first in a series, is too big to easily sum up the plot and do it justice. Basically, Robert Baratheon led a revolt against the old king of the Seven Kingdoms when he was a young man. Now that he's middle-aged, he's found that he was more interested in fighting for the throne than he is in sitting on it. He calls on his oldest friend, Ned Stark, to take the office of the Hand of the King, and effectively leaves him to run the kingdom while Robert hunts, womanizes, drinks and has a good time. But people have noticed that Robert isn't truly a king, and his throne is vulnerable to vast conspiracies. That synopsis does this no justice. There are so many different plots woven into this epic, it's incredible. The characters are wonderfully depicted and complicated. The story is told through the eyes of many different characters. From Ned's daughter, Sansa, an 11-year-old girl who is too romantic and prim and proper for her own good, to the cynical dwarf, Tyrion, who is the king's brother-in-law, each character has something to say and a unique voice to say it in. But it never gets confusing. Just in case, though, there's a "family tree" of characters at the end to help keep everyone straight, but I never had to use it. For an 800+ page book, I really ripped through this. I picked it up to read just a little one night and I was over 60 pages into it before I realized it. For such a huge book, it really was hard to put down. I got sucked into each character's story and lost track of the time. And this happened every time I picked the book up. It's hard to maintain that kind…

The Fetch by Laura Whitcomb: Book Review

Calder is a Fetch, a soul who escorts people on their journey to heaven. One day he shows up at a Death Scene, waiting to see if an infant chooses to die or not. The woman holding the baby takes his breath away. She's beautiful and has a kind, caring, sad face. He can't get her out of his thoughts, and his work begins to suffer for it. The Fetch was okay, I just felt like I never really connected with anyone. I'm beginning to wonder if I really don't like third-person narratives and just never noticed before. Here, I just felt like I was told a lot of stuff and not really shown anything. I'm told that Calder has always felt like he shouldn't be a Fetch because he has trouble with obedience, but the little I see before the story really starts shows a guy who honestly tries his best. Eventually I was told that he's in love with someone, but I didn't really see it happening. Maybe the author was trying to keep the story short, but I felt like this book should have been longer to show me everything that was happening rather than just telling me and hoping that I accepted it. At the beginning, Alexis is a whiny, bratty teenager. I freely admit that if I'd gone through what he'd gone through, I would have easily out-whined him. But I have very, very little tolerance for angsty teenagers, so he really turned me off. There were times that I just wanted to shake Calder and tell him to start thinking. He finds out that there are two things he has to do. One of them was obvious to me from the beginning. It took him forever to figure it out. Calder ends up on…

The Help by Kathryn Stockett: Book Review

In Jackson, Mississippi during the Civil Rights era, a white woman stumbles on the idea of writing a book about the black maids of the area and the white families they work for. There have been so many great reviews written for this book, that I don't know if I have a whole lot more to add. I was alternately infuriated and then cheering for the characters. Seriously. On page 7, I was thinking, "Did I really just read that? Oh my gosh. What a bitch." On page 9, I was laughing, thinking, "All right! I like this character. I can't believe she said that!" And that's how I went through the book. One extreme to the other. There were even parts that left me misty-eyed, and that doesn't happen often. The idea behind the book was great, but I think without the characters, I wouldn't have liked it as well as I did. I just loved them all. Aibileen is so calm and wise, but she's taken all she can take. She's the one who left me wondering what part of your soul you have to tamp down or kill in order to put up with this kind of stuff. Miss Skeeter is the white society girl who went to college to actually learn, not to catch a husband. She wants to be a writer and only accidentally stumbled on this firestorm of an idea. She wasn't quite as indoctrinated in this whole racist point of view as most of her friends, but she still didn't know what she was letting herself in for. To her credit, even when she did realize and her world started falling apart, she knew that what she was doing was too important to stop. And then there's Minny. Oh, my gosh, Minny. She's…

She-Rain by Michael Cogdill: Book Review

Frank Locke is the son of an opium addict in the 1920s in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina. He's quit school to work in a cotton mill and take care of his parents' and grandparents' farms. He's bitter about his father, but he's found a good woman to love. Then some big family drama hits the fan and he discovers a world whose existence he'd never even dreamed of. I'm a Blue Ridge mountain girl, so I'm a little predisposed to love books set at home anyway. But this was just gorgeous, both the writing and the story. It's not a book to rush through; it's a book to take your time over, savor, and wring every last bit of meaning out of. Here, this paragraph that explains both the title and very basic premise of the book will show you what I'm talking about. "In the rise of crickets and peep frogs, Granny spread out her mountain mystic view of things again, and the whole wagon treated it as sacred for a moment. She'd often speak of how a little scrap of fog tears from a rain cloud. Floats on the waves of blue ridge as if a wisp off a bride. Granny and others called it she-rain, I suppose for its womanly drape, white as a wedding gown. Common legend, though Granny took the vision further. Said she-rain was like us all--little scraps torn off into the world, given to the wind, and meant to find a paradise. As she saw things, no human scrap of this life is made for the trash. Even the most ragged are fit to beautify somewhere. Fit for some quilting into the finery of creation." And that's the hope. No matter your background, no matter what you've done, its never…

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger: Book Review

Synopsis from GoodReads: Born with no air in his lungs, it was only when Reuben Land's father, Jeremiah, picked him up and commanded him to breathe that Reuben's lungs filled. Reuben struggles with debilitating asthma from then on, making him a boy who knows firsthand that life is a gift, and also one who suspects that his father is touched by God and can overturn the laws of nature. The quiet 1960's midwestern life of the Lands is upended when Reuben's brother Davy kills to marauders who have come to harm the family. The morning of his sentencing, Davy -- a hero to some, a cold-blooded murderer to others -- escapes from his cell, and the Lands set out in search of him. Their journey is touched by serendipity and the kindness of strangers, and they cover territory far more extraordinary than even the Badlands where they search for Davy from their Airstream trailer. Sprinkled with playful nods to Biblical tales, beloved classics such as Huckleberry Finn, the adventure stories of Robert Louis Stevenson, and the westerns of Zane Grey, Peace Like A River is at once a heroic quest, a tragedy, a love story, and a haunting meditation on the possibility of magic in the everyday world. Do you love Scout and Jem Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird? Then you will love Reuben and Swede Land. Reuben's simple faith in his father and his brother are refreshing and heart-breaking. But Swede--Swede is the shining star in her family's sky. Reuben tells this story and his talented sister obviously baffles him at times. She's composing an epic Western poem as they journey across the Badlands, and she's finding that her characters won't do what she wants them to. She's hilarious, she's heart-broken, she's frustrated, and she's wise beyond her…

Ash by Malinda Lo: Book Review

Ash is a re-telling of Cinderella, with more fairies and no fairy godmother. The style this is written in is not a style for me. It feels true to what I remember of the original Grimm's fairy tales, but that doesn't mean I like it. It's all third person, watching Ash do her thing, with very little dialog. I like my characters to talk more than that. I did like the twist on the tale, but I think that if you call yourself a conservative, you will dislike it a lot. No judgment, I'm just sayin'. And I think that's really all I have to say. It was okay, but I've honestly already forgotten most of it and I just finished it last night.

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld: Book Review

Aleksandr Ferdinand is the son of the Archduke of the Austro-Hungarian empire. He finds himself on the run one night with a few loyal men and a Stormwalker, a two-legged machine that sounds like something out of Star Wars. Deryn Sharp is a girl who loved to fly with her father. Now that he's dead, her only hope of flying again is to disguise herself as a boy and join the British Air Service. I loved this world that Westerfeld created. The Star Wars type machines of the Clankers set against the fantastical animals created by the Darwinists was just a lot of fun. Who doesn't love the idea of a whale that's evolved to fly? It was all just so whimsical that I loved it. And then to choose to set these people down smack at the beginning of World War I rather than in the future really just tickled me. I loved the illustrations too. The detailed pencil drawings added the perfect touch to the story for me. Alek and Deryn were great characters. They were both about fifteen or sixteen and they already had strong personalities, but I liked watching them grow and learn throughout the book. There was one point where I got pretty upset with Deryn, and I can't decide if I think she acted out of character or if people who blindly follow orders without any thought of their own just irritate the heck out of me. Either way, I got past it and she did too. For the record, I was not a huge fan of Westerfeld's Uglies, but I really did love this book. So if you didn't really care for his earlier book either, don't let that turn you off this new series. It was a great adventure story with amazing…

Tempest Rising by Nicole Peeler: Book Review

Jane True is practically an outcast in her small town of Rockabill, Maine. She finds solace in swimming in the ocean, dangerously close to the whirlpool known as The Old Sow. When she finds a body in the water, her world changes beyond all recognition. The big draw for me was the cover. I love it! It does make the book like it might be YA though, and it is not YA. Sex. Lots of sex. Need I say more? This was a lot of fun, and I really liked Jane, her problems and her world. There's such a wealth of supernatural beings to choose from out there, it's nice to see an author taking advantage of that rather than dwelling on the vamps and weres. I don't know if I just had to get used to Peeler's style or if the beginning really was an info dump, but I was a little disappointed when I first started. I've been looking forward to reading this for a while, and I did not expect to be less-than-thrilled at the beginning. Jane's Libido killed me. It was practically a character, hence the capitalization I gave it. It's pretty clear what part of Jane is thinking, "This guy's super-hot!" without being told that it's her Libido. Or her Lady Bits. Or whatever. There should be a supernatural rock band called "Jane's Libido" worked somewhere into the series! Hee hee! I obviously think I'm funny. ;-) Jane is pretty funny. I laughed out loud pretty consistently throughout the book. Her descriptions of some of the "supes" she meets are hilarious, and I could appreciate her self-deprecating sense of humor. When she meets Trill the kelpie, my husband finally gave up and asked me what I was laughing at. Mostly he tries to ignore me…